W. E. B. Du Bois Souls of Black FolkThe problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line. These were the prescient words of W. E. B. Du Boiss influential 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk. The preeminent Black intellectual of his generation, Du Bois wrote about the trauma of seeing the Reconstruction eras promise of racial equality cruelly dashed by the rise of white supremacist terror and Jim Crow laws. Yet he also argued for the value of African American cultural